The Changeling

Posted on May 7, 2013 by bk145564

Beatrice and De Flores’ relationship in The Changeling was very peculiar to me. Throughout the play she was disgusted by him, but when taking him up on his service she was then almost attached to his fate. The first introduction the audience has of their relationship is De Flores coming to talk to her but then she cuts him off showing her dominating status over him. It wasn’t until her passion for another man led her to the beginning of her end.

Beatrice was flirting with her demise when she flirted with De Flores to get him to kill Antonio. At this point she shows a break in the social boundaries by telling De Flores to stand up, rising him to her level. After committing the act, De Flores comes back to gain his reward. Accept, contrary to what Beatrice thinks, the reward he seeks is much greater then any monetary value. I saw this as him outsmarting Beatrice and making her in debt to him.

By neither of the characters specifying the reward for De Flores’ servitude, it places him in the perfect position. As soon as she asked him for his help she sealed her fate. De Flores was then able to gain the upper hand and this is truly the point where they become equal. Him physically then taking her virginity enforces that she just gave away her power. Her virginity was in fact the thing that made her most desirable, and without it she was then portrayed as less then.

At the end when De Flores stabs Beatrice is again another peculiar scene. She cries out in a mixture of pain and pleasure confusing to those that hear it. De Flores was not only to blame for her loss of status but now her loss of life. As they died by each other it almost seems poetic, but the fact that he stabbed her just shows how desperate he was to be so truly equal if not overpowering her.

Posted in Life vs. Death, Power struggles, Psychological detail, The Changeling | 2 Comments

The Changeling: Falling victim to your own plans

Posted on May 6, 2013 by shazia.ahmed

Before writing this blog I was troubled about whether to elaborate on the class discussion on innocence and women or start a new thought. However after rereading today’s discussed schemes I found a small sub-theme inside the bigger theme of innocence. This theme comes out when De Flores says that Beatrice has lost her own innocence and is the slave of the deed rather than the mastermind behind the deed. I realized that De Flores highlight the sub-theme of victimization. In this case I found it interesting because Beatrice becomes the victim of her own plan.

Although many may argue that others are the victim to Beatrice’s plans, she is rarely alone in making decisions. Along her side is  De Flores who comes up with the idea to burn a part of the house. She tries to save herself to prove her virtue; however, one of her lies leads to another which eventually leads to her death. De Flores mentions that she must think about her reputation above all else,but while thinking about her reputation she becomes lost in the things she does to save herself. She murders and lies and cheats; yet when push comes to shove she cannot take the weight of her own plans. An example of this is when she says she commits murder and deceit because of Alsemero’s love for her.

All her lies leads to her own death. She all along probably felt that she can control and tell people what to do, for example how she made Diaphanta go into bed with Alsemero.  However she could not control the actual truth.

Posted in Love relationships, Psychological detail, The Changeling | 2 Comments

Two Characters–Similar in Situation but Different in Decisions

Posted on May 6, 2013 by jbajraktari

The subplot plays a significant role in dramas, particularly Elizabethan and Jacobean dramas.  The subplot reinforces the theme/main idea of the play by presenting characters that are in situations parallel to those of the main characters, yet have contrasting personalities.  For example, Isabella and Beatrice are both young women with prospective men in their lives.  Three men are vying for Isabella’s attention and affection (Francisco, Antonia, and Lollio) and three men are also interested in Beatrice (Alonso, Alsemero, and De Flores).  Isabella’s placed in a situation that limits her freedom and makes her an object of her husband’s authority, while Beatrice also initially lacks the freedom to choose whom she wants to marry.

These characters dramatically differ, however, in that Isabella remains virtuous and chaste, and does not succumb to the pursuits of the men attempting to win her over.  In fact, she ironically beats them at their own game and wittily exposes their true intentions. Beatrice, on the other hand, takes a very different approach and loses her innocence in every way possible.  The consequence of her actions is a serious one–death.  Although she temporarily gets what she wants, the ends certainly do not justify the means.

Isabella and Beatrice are foils of each other, and the inclusion of Isabella in the plot of the play makes the audience see even more clearly how the selfish, immoral acts of a woman lead to a snowball effect of destruction.

Posted in Power struggles, Psychological detail, The Changeling | 1 Comment

What price goes murder?

Posted on May 6, 2013 by peter d'antonio

On the surface, The Changeling isn’t all that different from some of the other plays that we’ve read in that by the end, justice (in some fashion) has been meted out to those deserving of it. Bodies strew the stage, dramatic final words are spoken (“‘Tis time to die when ’tis a shame to live.”), and things seem somewhat right by the close of the final curtain (perhaps because the two principal villainous characters are dead). Yet this play is far from just another Renaissance tragedy.

When compared with some other of our readings, the play’s conclusion seems rather tame; the deaths are numbered, and De Flores and Beatrice depart seemingly on their own volition. Yet by the time Joanna breathes her final breaths, she has already lost something perhaps more valuable than her life, her reputation. And what’s more the loss of this intangible is not merely the result of a one time occurrence, but rather a repeated and consistent set of choices that she makes throughout the play’s five acts. In many ways, The Changeling signifies the vast difference in female characterization that we’ve encountered since the start of our readings this semester. From the start of the play, Joanna is neither the passive nor genteel character we might’ve expected out of a female character. Her degrading treatment of De Flores from the onset foreshadows in many respects the downward moral spiral that her character will undergo.

As a character whose status is of less than noble standing,  Joanna is able to hold herself on her virginal purity and (dare I say) innocence. She sullies both of these beyond repair. So to return to the question that Alsemero originally posed to De Flores in the final scene, What price goes murder? The answer for Joanna is not merely her life, but her reputation, honor and purity, and by 5.3, she pays up.

Posted in Power struggles, Psychological detail, The Changeling | 1 Comment

The Changeling Scene Study

Posted on May 5, 2013 by thomash

http://youtu.be/OFdtNfR231A

In preparing to shoot this scene, our team knew that the focus would be to find a solemn place where the sounds of the mad could be heard. Given that Baruch and the surrounding area are full of life, we chose to do our study in the library to utilize a quiet place where background sound effect could be clearly heard (mad house occupants moaning). The characters constant personality change in this scene was challenging to capture, but it made the parts of Isabella and Antonio even more fulfilling to play. One thing that would have definitely helped our study would have been if we could have located a better mad house, but that is not something that is easy to come by. I hope everyone enjoys the movie!

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The question of Beatrice’s modesty.

Posted on May 1, 2013 by glenda

A woman’s modesty can be questioned when  she  falls in love with a man while engaged to a different one. In a period where divorce was non-existent, this notion of separation from your fiance was not acceptable. In order to keep her honor and reputation in good terms she decides to pay De Flores, her father’s servant, to kill her fiance to have the opportunity to be with the man she currently loves. Of course De Flores, as his name suggests, doesn’t want to be repaid in money but with Beatrice’s “honor” or virginity. In Act 3.4 De Flores questions Beatrice’s defense of denying him her virginity.

Towards the end of this scene where De Flores makes clear his recompense for his “service,” he argues that a woman that is willing to kill cannot use the excuse of wanting to keep her modesty as a reason to not want to repay him. He states in line 27, ” A woman dipped in blood, and talk of modesty?” He also negates her excuse of wanting to keep her reputation in a good standing because “though thou writ’st maid, thou whore in thy affection!” The  reason he considers her a whore is because she “changed from thy first love, and that’s a kind of whoredom in thy heart, and he’s changed now, to bring thy second on.” In  other words, her love and devotion was first with one man, then she loves another, her affection is unreliable and lacks any sense of modesty.

As De Flores criticizes Beatrice for her immodest behavior  the reader is left to question whether De Flores has any right to question it. This is mainly due to the fact that it is also immodest for a man to murder another simply for a reward, then blackmail the person paying for set service. What he was really looking after, as discussed in class, was a way to achieving an equal if not higher hierarchy than his “master.” Even though both of these characters show signs of immodesty as the saying goes, “it takes one to know one” and De Flores, displaying all these characteristics of a immodest man definitely can pin point and criticize Beatrice’s modesty because he is also an immodest character, even though Beatrice is the worst out of the two.

Posted in The Changeling | 2 Comments

Stubbornness in Love

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Angelic Rivera

In The Changeling, we see that Beatrice is arranged to marry Alonzo. After asking for a three day extension for their wedding, Tomazo forewarns Alonzo about Beatrice. Alonzo quickly dismisses what was said about Beatrice, and does not listen to Tomazo. This is also seen in Endymion. Upon hearing Enydmion’s love for Cynthia, Eumenides advises him against it and states that his friend is “bewitched.” Both men go against others’ opinions for the sake of love. Through their stubbornness, this leads to a negative outcome. Ultimately, Alonzo is killed, and Endymion falls into a deep sleep that lasts many years. This shows their vulnerability and persistence towards love. They are unwilling to accept the reality, and continue to seek towards love.

The main drive of both these plays is love. They are willing to go through the obstacles in order to achieve their desires. Their driving force are their desires. They are too stubborn to realize the reality or to take the advice of those who are not blind with love. They are seeing these women with love instead of the naked eye. They allow themselves to be vulnerable towards their desires for these women, but are being stubborn to see and hear the reality.

Posted in Endymion, Love relationships, The Changeling | 2 Comments

Shades of Mephistopheles in Bosola

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Lyaman

During my reading of The Duchess of Malfi, the character of Bosola at times kept reminding me of Mephistopheles from Doctor Faustus. To me they seem to be an extension of the same archetype, not to say they are particularly similar but rather they seem to be part of the same string extending in different directions.

Mephistopheles is the fallen angel who makes the bargain with the Faustus to serve him for 24 years in return for Faustus’s soul. Throughout the play Mephistopheles keeps urging and helping Faustus to damn himself and waste his time, but at the same time he shows striking signs of trying to make Faustus believe in G-d and heaven, as well as showing signs of regret for his fall and banishment from heaven. Mephistopheles says, “I am a servant to great Lucifer/And may not follow thee without his leave. No more than he commands must we perform” (1.3.41-3) and then he follows it up with, “Why this is hell, nor am I am out of it. Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God/ And tasted the eternal joys of heave, / Am not tormented with ten thousand hells/ In being deprived of the ever lasting bliss?”(1.3.78-82).  He  later repeats his knowledge of hell and thus heaven by saying, “For I am damned and am now in hell” (2.1.138). The quotes show that not only is Mephistopheles bound and subservient to Lucifer (and Faustus, but that’s besides the point) but he shows self-awareness of what he is and what he has lost.

We meet Mephistopheles already damned, and in the middle there are small instances of him trying to (futilely) dissuade Faustus from condemning his soul, thus doing a good deed. However, when that fails, Mephistopheles reverts to his prime directive as a servant of Lucifer, which is pushing Faustus into abandoning G-d and thus gaining Faustus’s soul.

It seems to somewhat mirror Bosola’s path. Just like Mephistopheles made a bad decision that damned him in following Lucifer to turn against G-d and heaven, so has Bosola made a bad decision in killing for the Cardinal (the first time).  We meet Bosola when he is already damned, having effectively sold his soul to the devil (the Cardinal), because as seen as the play unfolds, once fallen into the Cardinal’s clutches there is no escaping.  It is that first deed that leads Bosola to further irretrievably damn himself, as he falls into the life of spying on the Duchess. Bosola makes the comparison to Mephistopheles himself when he says to Ferdinand on his new job, “Why a very quaint invisible devil, in flesh:/An intelligencer” (1.1.261-2).  Just as Bosola is Ferdinand’s and Cardinal’s “creature” (1.1.289), so is Mephistopheles Lucifer’s creature. And as Bosola says, “Sometimes the devil doth preach” (1.1.293), both he and Mephistopheles preach a cautionary tale.

There are other similarities between the two characters like the disguises they take on, Bosola because he can’t bear to appear as himself to the Duchess and Mephistopheles because Faustus commands it and because he needs to disguise his true nature. As Mephistopheles plays a deceptive confidant to Faustus, so is Bosola to the Duchess.

The difference between the two characters emerges in in the closing of Doctor Faustus. Mephistopheles embraces his damned fate and his servitude to Lucifer. Bosola, on the other hand, repents his role in the death of the Duchess (as for the motives, there is a healthy mix of its wrongness and once again being cheated by the Duchess’s brothers).  The Duchess takes on the role of a deity to him. Bosola says, “am angry with myself, now that I wake” (4.2.326-8) and then, “What would I do, were this to do again? / I would not change my peace of conscience / For all the wealth of Europe.  …. Return, fair soul, from darkness, and lead mine/ out of this sensible hell! ” (4.2.340-50)

Like the theme in Doctor Faustus, penitence plays a large part in The Duchess of Malfi and in both cases all the characters fail to achieve it. When Bosola says, “I’ll be my own example” and “O, penitence let me truly taste thy cup that thrown men down only to raise them up” (5.2.366-67), it is his attempt to save himself, to make some sort of amends in saving Antonio. But much like Mephistopheles attempts to stop Faustus from making the bargain had the oppose reaction, so did Bosola’s actions – killing Antonio.  What Bosola says about himself, “That we cannot be suffered to do good when we have a mind to it” (4.2.364), relates to Mephistopheles too. Both these characters are damned because of their initial alliance.

The final difference between them is that Bosola is able to tear the string that ties him to his Lucifer figure , the Cardinal, when he kills him. And though that act is not enough to salvage him, it does at least just make him a damned soul, rather than one of the devils.

Posted in Doctor Faustus, Power struggles, The Duchess of Malfi, Tragedy | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Hypocrisy and the Selfishness of the Brothers

Posted on April 24, 2013 by dc135125

The brothers of the Duchess were nothing but hypocrites. They forbid their sister to marry, but they were also not married at all. Normally one would secure their legacy by marrying and having children.  However that will not happen for the two males of the royal family. They, unlike their sister, only cared for themselves, and that would prove their downfall in the end. Selfish people would get their judgment in due time, but the good would need to suffer first.

In the case of Ferdinland, why does he hate his sister so much, especially if they were twins? He was a terrible and wicked brother who seemed to be too obsessed with his sister and wants her for herself. When the Duchess lives, Ferdinand wants her to be single so he could inherit all of her money. However, he got his wish, but his sanity was gone, and his other half (the Duchess) was torn away from him. He became a like a werewolf and died a horrible death. A hypocrite to the end, his fate was well deserved, since he caused Bosola to murder his sister, her children, the maid Cariola, and others.

However, the Cardinal is even worse. He values reputation, but his sister has the reputation he needed. There was no love, mercy, or any type of selfless aspect from the Cardinal. He only cares for himself and would abandon his own brother, the one who plotted with him in the end. However, the Cardinal deserved a far worse death than the attack from Bosola because of his wicked plans, wicked deeds, and a stable mind. He was the real mastermind and deserved to be tortured like his sister before he dies. However, that was not to happen, and in the end, all the reputation the Cardinal wanted was gone and he wished himself to be forgotten, since his family name became tarnished.

Posted in Power struggles, The Duchess of Malfi | 2 Comments

Ferdinand’s OCD

Posted on April 24, 2013 by J Gritz

Ferdinand’s obsession with the Duchess is one of confusion in this play. Seeing the death of the Duchess’s children brings no remorse to Ferdinand. Yet seeing the Duchess barely moving and presumed dead (though she dies later on), he can barely look upon her dead body, saying, “Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle; she died young” (4.2.262). He then berates Bosola for not defending her from Ferdinand’s orders. What was most peculiar during his berating of Bosola was his explanation of how he wished his sister would not have married and instead her inheritance would be given to him upon her death. My immediate reaction was as if he was trying to excuse himself for feeling such remorse, trying to appear as if he was a tough man who did not care at all for his sister.

Whatever feelings he had for his sister would not be distinguished as family love, but possibly more incestuous in nature. He wants to control her, force her into submission. When he hands her the dagger to push her into killing herself, he wants to have complete control by forcing someone out of their own will into what he wishes them to do (3.2.73). Yet the Duchess is such a strong-minded character that she is able to realize what her brother is attempting to do. After she shows Antonio the dagger, who states matter-of-factly what Ferdinand wishes the Duchess would do with the dagger, she responds, “His action seemed to intend so much” (3.2.154-155). She is clearly aware of her brother’s intentions and may even be hinting towards his obsession over her life (and death). The Duchess is an immensely strong-willed character, while her brother proves himself to be a coward, unable to be fully satisfied with the forces out of his control.

Posted in The Duchess of Malfi | 2 Comments